Activities: We continued to practice our daily classroom routine as well as review classroom, circle time & center rules. We introduced painting at the easel by reading I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More! We talked about our easel routine (putting on a smock, getting paper, painting, drying) & how to appropriately paint on paper at the easel. Then we painted cardboard circles at the easel, added designs with dot markers & glued on various items shaped like circles to design our own dots! Ask your child what color we painted our circles.

We used various shaped cookie cutters (basic geometric shapes) with play dough as well as large rolling pins. Manipulating play dough helps prepare us for future writing activities by strengthening our fine motor skills.

Hula hoops, round placemats, log slices & bottle caps were used while we worked as a team with our peers to design dots. We also used foam blocks, Legos, wood blocks and more to build.

Looking Ahead:

Next week we will begin our “All About Me” activities as well as work in some Autumn fun. We say goodbye to summer & welcome the official arrival of Fall this Friday, 9/22/17.

During small group time, we will begin using the Fundations Pre-K curriculum for our Pre-K children to introduce letters, letter-sound relationships & writing skills. Fundations is the curriculum used in the UPK programs in both Sachem & Connetquot School Districts as as well as in Sachem’s grades K-3.

Holbrook Fire Department field trip is on 10/2/17. Morning session time is 9:30-11. Afternoon session time is 1:00-2:30. Permission slips with further information were sent home this week & are due back on Wednesday, September 27.

Back to School Night is Wednesday, September 27 from 7:00-8:00. This is an informational evening for parents only. I hope you will be able to join us.

Reminder:

October Scholastic book orders will be sent home the last week of September & are due 9/29 to ensure delivery before Halloween.

​Always feel free to speak to any of us about any concerns/issues you might have. We are all in this together & want your child to have the most positive preschool experience possible!

Have a wonderful long weekend! L’Shana Tovah to all who celebrate!

Ms. Sheri, Ms. Joyce, Ms. Sarah, Miss Fabi & Miss Bethany

I am in PreschoolI was not built to sit still,keep my hands to myself,take turns,be patient,stand in line,or keep quietall of the time.I need:motion,novelty,adventure,and to engage the world with my whole body.Let Me Play(trust me, I'm learning!)

We did it! We made it through our 1st full week of school! We also welcomed our new friend Annaliese this week.

We always begin circle time by singing a few routine songs to shake out our “sillies” & help us attend to activities & stories. During the course of the school year, the songs will change every now & then. This week’s songs were:

The Awful Aardvarks Go To School is a book about a few aardvarks that have difficulty behaving in the classroom. We defined the word “awful” and talked about appropriate & inappropriate classroom behavior. Some of the children spoke about being “bad” & we stressed that the children themselves aren’t bad but sometimes the behavior is bad. At the end of our story, the aardvarks were “expelled” from school, and then zoomed to the zoo. The author left the rest to the imagination by stating, “And there what did they do? I don’t even dare to imagine – do you?” We asked the children what they thought the awful aardvarks did at the zoo & they responded with some very clever answers. See our language chart below.

If your child’s name is not on the chart, your child was either not in school or chose to not answer the question. Keep in mind that we don’t expect 2-year-olds or even new 3-year-olds to answer these questions, however, we always give them the opportunity & sometimes they truly surprise us. Answering “wh” questions is part of a child’s speech & language development. Additionally, we don’t expect 2-year-olds to sit in circle for any length of time. If they prefer to leave circle, we have puzzles, books and other activities available for them.

It's International Dot Week! We will carry over our “celebration” into next week since it is a short week.

We kicked off our celebration by reading the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds on Thursday & Friday. For those unfamiliar with this inspiring story, it is about a young girl who discovers her unique artistic style by painting a dot! While reading the book I asked the children what the dot on the page looked like to them.

Follow up activities to reading included making our mark using dot markers & using dot markers to color our names. Fine motor skills, color recognition, as well as letter & name recognition were skills we worked on during these fun activities. We also discussed items shaped like a circle.

​For some of our children, the honeymoon appears to be over. While some children experienced anxiety during the first few days of preschool, others have now realized that this is their new routine. Both scenarios are very typical for young children. Here are a few ideas to help out:

Clearly state to your child where you will be & when you will return. It may also be helpful to discuss what will happen when you are reunited.

Maintain a clear good-bye routine. This may include telling your child you are leaving in 3 minutes, a kiss & hug, or a wave from the door. Once you tell your child you are leaving, it is important to follow through. Extending the good-bye with, "Ok just one more kiss, & then I really have to go” tends to heighten anxiety rather than relieve it. Avoid sneaking out, as this seems to encourage children to become less trusting & might make the next drop off day even harder.

I promise you, it is so much harder on us as parents than it actually is on our kids. Try not to feel guilty. I've been there myself. Children are so much more resilient than we give them credit for & adjust much easier than we think they can. While some might take a bit longer than others to adjust, they all eventually have a wonderful time in preschool.

Looking Ahead:

Holbrook Fire Department field trip is on 10/2/17. More information to come soon.

Scholastic book orders will be placed this weekend.

Reminder:

No school on Thurs., 9/21 & Fri., 9/22 due to Rosh Hashanah.

If you haven't already done so, please send in a family photo. The children love to look at these throughout the school day.

Back to School Night is Wednesday, September 27 from 7:00-8:00. This is an informational evening for parents only. I hope you will be able to join us.

October Scholastic book orders will be sent home the last week of September & are due 9/29 to ensure delivery before Halloween.

​Always feel free to speak to any of us about any concerns/issues you might have. We are all in this together & want your child to have the most positive preschool experience possible!

As we get ready to kick off our 4th school year at Creative Kids Center, we would like to welcome all of our new students & families as well as all of our returning students & families! We are truly grateful that you have entrusted us with your precious little ones and look forward to a fun-filled and exciting school year!

This month we will spend time observing our students to discover their interests during play. We will also introduce many exciting topics, including the identification and recognition of body parts, letters, numbers, shapes and colors. In addition, we will learn to recognize our names in print and practice writing skills in our writing center. All of these skills will be learned through developmentally appropriate play-based activities.

We are off to a fabulous start! During the first few days we adjusted to the classroom routine, made new friends & reviewed classroom rules. We introduced the pretend play center, block center and small world center. We are introducing our centers slowly to explore appropriate behavior in each center during play time.

During circle time, we sang songs to shake out our “sillies” & help us attend to activities and stories. A few other songs we sang were Criss Cross Applesauce, Hello, Jump Up & Down (transition song), ABC You Later, The Goodbye Song, & Goodbye. We read Time to Say Bye-Bye (Maryann Cocca-Leffler), The School Book (Todd Parr) and Scholastic's My Big World reader, Our Class Rules. These stories helped us adjust to being at school and away from our homes. We counted the days on our linear calendar then jumped up and down the same number of times. We are also counting our way to 100 days of school. Each school day we add a star to our 100 Days chart, then jump while counting to the number (3 days down!). Do you think we’ll be able to jump up and down 100 times? Only time will tell!

To end the first week we used instruments while dancing to songs on Kidz Bop Dance Party on Friday morning and afternoon. Every Friday we will participate in a fabulous & fun Friday dance party! On Friday we also answered the question, “What kind of teacher do you want?” See our language chart below. If your child’s name is not on the chart, that is because your child was not in school or chose to not answer the question.

Looking Ahead:

Friday, September 15ish is International Dot Day! International Dot Day is a global celebration of creativity, courage and collaboration, which began when a classroom teacher introduced his students to the book, The Dot (Peter Reynolds). The Dot is a story about a caring teacher who dares a doubting student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to “make her mark”. What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing, which has gone on to inspire countless children and adults around the globe. And each year on International Dot Day – the inspiration continues. We will participate in various activities including the reading of The Dot by Peter Reynolds. If your child has any polka dot clothing, please wear the polka dots to school on Friday, September 15.

During the next few weeks, our new students will paint placemats using watercolors to use during snack and lunch. We will also make our own birthday crowns to use during birthday celebrations.

We are taking a field trip to the Holbrook Fire Dept on October 2nd. We might need some help with carpooling for these trips. More information to come soon.

Reminder:

Please send in a family picture to include on our “Family” wall if you haven't already done so.

Please turn in any paperwork that was sent home as soon as possible.

Scholastic book orders will be sent home next week and are due on Friday, 9/15/17.

Back to School Night will be September 27, 2017 from 7:00-8:00 p.m.

Remember to ask your child open-ended questions about their day. This will encourage open communication between parents and children as well as help develop their language skills.